Excerpt from New Release!

 

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Excerpt:

Wil woke to an excruciating headache accompanied by neck and shoulder pain. Sharp. He couldn’t open his eyes. Dying is an awful business.

He was cold, but could feel something warm all around. Gradually, his shivering slowed to a stop. 

Warm… But there should be nothing warm.

A kitten meowed, loud and clear. That would be Rudy, the largest orange-striped kitten, such a loud fellow. 

The meow was drowned out by voices, not speaking English or Canadian French. Not Deutsch, nor Hindi. A Native language? He had not learned any of those yet.

Oh. I can’t be back in Saskatchewan. There was no way for this ship to return to Earth. It would burn up.

He was finally able to pry his eyelids apart, just a slit. Bright lights, white walls. People with blue skin, dressed alike. Blue skin? They wore plain, odd uniforms.

Painfully, he turned his head to see the kittens, who were noisy. They were in a large cage with their mama. Mitzi had closed eyes, but he could see her belly rising and falling with breaths. There was a bowl of water in the cage, and the rags from their little cubby on the ship were in there, too. Blanca, the mostly white kitten, was hanging from the cage wires. Two siblings nuzzled Mitzi to nurse, who woke, blinking.

Blue people crowded around him, staring at glass rectangles with script and lights, chattering. One reached over and placed a cold pack of slick material on his aching forehead. He then noticed a tube in his nose and tubes in his arms. Medical people. They all wore uniforms of gray. And their skin and hair were blue. Most of them. There was a man with brown skin and a trunk like an elephant.

Blue space people rescued me. It was too hard to think about, logically. He was so tired. His chest ached.

Star people. Grandmama was right.

The next time he awoke there was no crowd of people, only two blue men. Next to the cat cage was a large wire cage with his hens. The hens had greenery on the floor. Their feed sack sat next to it. They were pecking for feed and seemed content. They were such good hens.

A woman came in as the medical men talked. She was lovely. Her skin was a pale blue and her hair was a mix of different colors, blue, aqua, pinks. She wore a dull green tunic and trousers, similar in style to the medical people. She smiled at Wil and tossed some chicken feed to the hen’s cage. Then she placed a bowl of canned fish in the cat’s cage. Mitzi allowed the space woman to pet her. 

The woman turned to him, eyes sparkling, blue with specks of other colors. The smile she gave him was wide, showing dimples and white teeth.

She patted her chest. “Shalar,” she said.

A joyous feeling swelled up within. He smiled back and tapped his own chest with a heavy hand. “Wil,” he croaked.

Shalar left with his animals. They didn’t want them in a hospital room, he figured. Wil smiled, amused at his state of mind. He had never been a lady’s man, not even when young and handsome. 

Must be almost dying has changed me. Trying to charm a space lady. Perhaps I will find a wife and have star children. Like Grandmama said. 

Warmth settled into his chilled bones, and the headache ratcheted down. He went back to sleep.